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INTERVIEW WITH Claire Smith

Claire Smith is professor in the University of Flinders, Adelaide (Australia). She has been President of the World Archaeological Congress. She has especialized in indigenous archaeology, carrying research with indigenous communities in South Australia. Furthermore, she has taken part in the Australian World Heritage Committee

Dear Claire, first of all we would
like to thank you for taking this interview for the blog. As the keynote
speaker for the opening of the conference, it will be hard to deal with all the
topics in such a few questions, so we will go right to the core of its aim… From
your perspective: who owns the past?

This seems like a simple question
but it is actually a very difficult question.
In one sense, we all own the past, as we are all interested in aspects
of the past. This is most clear when we
are talking about the very distant past, such as with human evolution. The question becomes much more complex when
we move closer in time, as different groups will have different levels of
attachment to cultural material. A
Jewish graveyard, for example, is likely to be of greater importance to Jewish
people than it will be for Christians or Muslims, even though Christians or
Muslims may also have a sense of ownership in that place. It becomes more complicated if you bring
geography into the equation. For
example, would a Jewish person in the USA have a greater ‘right’ to the Jewish
graveyard in Riga, Latvia – or would local Latvian people have a greater
right? As I said, this is not a simple
question.

You are a great defender of Aboriginal people’s control over
publication. In one article (Smith 2004), you indicate that Australian
Aboriginal informants were paid for their contributions and photographs. Is this
contributing to incorporating them into the Western socio-economic system? Does
this represent another form of colonization?

That is a good question and I can
see that people might view payment to Aboriginal people as one way of
incorporating them into a capitalist economic system. However, being paid is an integral part of
the Australian Aboriginal system of knowledge dissemination. Knowledge is
intellectual property and Aboriginal people have always demanded to be paid
when they share their intellectual property.
One traditional example is in ceremonies when the person who ‘owns’ a
major ceremony pays the person who has been responsible for the production of
that ceremony. In the past, payment was
in form of food, tools and reciprocal responsibilities.

Since we are talking about colonialism… Are non-indigenous, Western media
such as museums, journals or even the “World Heritage” label, for example,
appropriate to convey indigenous knowledge?

This is a question for Aboriginal
people to decide. While non-Indigenous,
Western media is not the traditional means by which knowledge was conveyed,
Indigenous cultures, like all cultures, have a right to change and adapt. Today, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous
people use this media to convey secular forms of Indigenous knowledge. However, restricted knowledge has restricted
forms of dissemination.

Moreover, is the UN Declaration of
Rights of the Indigenous People another way of colonialism, since it was
conceived from a Western essentialist idea of universal value?

The
United Nation’s Declaration of Rights of
the Indigenous People was conceived with input from both Indigenous and
non-Indigenous people. While
international declarations such as this are embedded in the notion of universal
value, this does not mean that they do not recognise differences. The wording of the Declaration of Rights of the Indigenous People can be a little ambiguous
and even contradictory. For example, the
opening statement that advocates ‘control by indigenous people over developments
affecting them and their lands, territories and resources’ needs to be set
against a preceding statement that ‘the diversity and richness of civilizations
and cultures, constitute the common heritage of humankind’. While the former emphasises the rights of
Indigenous groups to control their cultural heritage the latter implies that
all humankind has rights in that heritage, so it is a little contradictory. In addition, we should also remember that the
declaration was developed to address some of the historic injustices that
Indigenous people have suffered as a result of colonization.

Globalization may be essential in the process of patrimonialization too.
In this context, “authenticity” can play a controversial role for indigenous
communities, transforming traditions and culture. Is it possible to draw clear-cut
boundaries?

It is always difficult to draw
clear-cut boundaries because we live in complex, messy worlds with multiple
layers of identity and connection.
Firstly, the notion of what is authentic differs in different parts of
the world, not just between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. When Japanese people restore an ancient
building they do not feel that the building is less authentic because an old
part has been replaced with a newer part.
From this viewpoint, authenticity is tied to change and on-going
renewal. This is very different to the
idea of authenticity being tied to a pristine past. Secondly, Indigenous people live in the
modern world. Like all cultures, their
cultures have changed, and will change.
So, change is an important aspect of being authentic. From this viewpoint, replicating the actions
or activities of a stagnant past could be considered to be not authentic, even though (or because) this produced items that
were identical to those produced in the past.
I am being polemical in this example, of course, because I want people
to think about authenticity as a living, changing thing. Clear-cut boundaries are impossible.

In this context, ethics play an important role, both for heritage
professionals and bodies. What do you reckon about the creation of a code of
ethics to deal with indigenous people? Is this the best way to recognise the
“others” rights?

The World
Archaeological Congress has several codes of ethics that deal with a wide range
of ethical issues involved in working with Indigenous people. The First Code of Ethics deals exclusively
with the rights of Indigenous people. It was adopted in 1990 at WAC-2 in Barquisimeto,
Venezuela. The Vermillion Accord on Human Remains was adopted in 1989 at a WAC
Inter-Congress in South Dakota, USA and the Code Of Ethics for the Amazon
Forest Peoples was adopted in 1994, at WAC-6 in New Delhi, India. The Tamaki
Makau-rau Accord on the Display of Human Remains and Sacred Objects was
proposed in 2005 at the Second Indigenous Inter-Congress in Auckland, New
Zealand and adopted at the WAC Inter-Congress in Osaka, Japan in 2006. Indigenous peoples initiated these codes and all
of them are a result of Indigenous action, in collaboration with non-Indigenous
people who support Indigenous rights.

As to this question, there are critics that consider codes of ethics a
way to remove the political context of any situation and also the manner to
stagnate the debate in future controversies. Where is your on this?

Codes of ethics will not solve all
ethical problems, but I do think they are useful. Codes of ethics are guidelines as to how a
group of people agree they should act in particular circumstances. These codes should be thought of as living
documents that may change as new circumstances arise.

However, different codes of ethics emphasise
different values. If you compare the
World Archaeological Congress’ First Code of Ethics with the Code of Ethics of
the Society for American Archaeology you can see that the former emphasises Indigenous
control over Indigenous cultural heritage, while the latter emphasises the role
of archaeologists as stewards of the past.
These are very different approaches that will produce very different
behaviours in the field.

The argument that ethical decisions
can only be decided as part of a process, so we don’t need codes of ethics,
seems to be a cop out to me. Codes of
ethics are clear statements concerning the behaviours we consider ethical or
non-ethical. They are not the last word
on any particular matter, but they are a useful baseline to refer to when you
encounter an ethical dilemma. When I am
in the field I have ethical dilemmas every day.
The way I resolve them is by referring to the teachings that I have
received from Aboriginal elders and the relevant codes of ethics.

Up to this point the interview has focused on indigenous communities,
but we would like to finish with your opinion about the impact of World
Heritage on these “other” communities of the West, where the concept of
“indigenous” is not that clear.

There are communities such as
gypsies who are not Indigenous in a strict definition but who are
marginalised. While a number of World
Heritage sites are associated with gypsies, these sites were not nominated to
celebrate the cultural richness of gypsy heritage. Instead, gypsies are
included as part of a wider community.
I’m thinking here of places such as Auschwitz Birkenau in Poland and the
Albayzin area of Granada in Spain. The Villages with Fortified Churches in
Transylvannia, Romania, is the clearest example of a gypsy-focussed World
Heritage listing.

I’m not sure what gypsies would
think about the concept of World Heritage because I have not worked with
them. However, I note that even people
such as the gypsies who are itinerant have some locations that they designate
as special. In France, for example, gypsies and French Gitans undertake a pilgrimage
each year to the church of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. I have
no idea whether they would want such a site listed for World Heritage status,
or how this would fit into their cultural and belief systems. However, it would seem to me that the rules
and constraints associated with World Heritage listing could interfere with the
way the site is currently used. Its
primary role would become more of a ‘universal’ tourist attraction rather than
the cultural and spirtual focus of a specific group.

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